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Dogs are a source of great joy and companionship to family members. In fact, many psychologists recommend dogs in home to evade depression. However, to enjoy with them, it is important to learn to train a dog. This is also necessary to cultivate good habits in them and to keep a check on their behavior, especially in a social environment.

Sit, heel, stay, come and down are the most basic commands that your canine friend must be familiar with. If you are confident that your dog understands and obeys these commands, you can take him for Canine Good Citizenship test conducted by the American Kennel Club. This will test its ability to associate with these commands. And once your dog learns all the commands, you would be a proud master of a smart and obedient dog.

However, behavior of dogs varies according to their breeds but there are some common problems such as barking, jumping and others that are common with all dogs. Let's learn a few tips to train a dog below.

Training a dog doesn’t mean that you have to be very strict with him. Instead, you need to develop an amicable relationship with your dog. Herein, one of the key factors is to praise or reward him for his good performance. Nonetheless, it is important to note that you should never punish your dog for unacceptable behavior too. Punishment will only inculcate negative feelings in your dog and bring animosity in your relationship with him.

You can make him feel guilty in other ways for his unacceptable behavior. This means that you may do anything that he doesn’t like. Like if you do not like your dog jumping on you when you enter the home, you can just penalize him by ignoring him. After some time, when he has settled in his abode and become a little calm, you can then cuddle and play with him.

It is also important to repeat these commands several times a day. This will help your pet to memorize your instructions and his associated behavior. Timing of your penalty and rewarding are also important. If you will reward your dog for his good performance done on the previous day, he will never be able to recognize that it is for his good behavior and rather take it as his lucky day. So, you must penalize or reward him while he is doing the act or has just completed it.

Also, to keep the interest of your dog in your training sessions, try to make your sessions sharp, short and great fun. However, make sure that you challenge the brain of your dog constantly during these sessions to make him active. Needless to say, do not haste to teach him several commands in a day. Progress slowly. Let him become proficient in one command first and then move onto the next command.